Twitter’s About Me page closes with “We believe real change starts with conversation. Here, your voice matters. Come as you are and together we’ll do what’s right (not what’s easy) to serve the public conversation.” As a Product Marketing Manager you’ll do just that.

PMMs at Twitter are extremely cross-functional. You’ll work closely with the product team, PR, research, and sales solutions specialists to bring Twitter products to market. You’ll design marketing communications, plan launches, drive sales, and deliver valuable feedback to PMs and engineering, and you’ll work closely with an internal team of PMMs to scale internal marketing programs. But how do you land such an in-demand position? We recently spoke with a fresh Twitter PMM hire, and we’ve got the inside scoop.

“The whole interview process was very very thorough” she says, “but it was conversational. I could tell they were looking for my input; my initial thoughts. They wanted to see my thought process.”

Curious about how to impress your future Tweeps? (and yes, that’s a real, Twitter-sanctioned thing.) Read on to ace that interview.

Interview Stages:

Typically, there are 4 rounds of interviews: recruiter screening, phone interview(s), an on-site, and a final “fit” assessment. On average, the entire process will take about 4-6 weeks, but this can vary significantly depending on roles available.

Phone Screen

Following your application, a recruiter will be in touch to “learn more about Twitter and discuss the position.” You’ll be asked basic questions about your experience and have a conversation about the specific role requirements and Twitter’s overall culture.

Call with Hiring Manager

Following the phone screen, you’ll receive a call with your hiring manager (often within a week) to discuss the department structure and goals. Our interviewee described it as conversational: “I was asked about my thoughts around what to work on first, where I would focus, and how I could add value.”

On-site:

The on-site interview is structured similarly to many other tech companies, with one twist: Twitter uses an interview methodology called Topgrading, which is meant to weed out resume-inflaters and identify “A-players”. Don’t worry, though - it’s not as stressful as it sounds.

We asked if the topgrading rounds felt hostile (given the scary description you’ll get from Wikipedia) and the answer was no. An exponent grad described the process as thorough, but she had heard about topgrading before and wasn’t thrown by the questions. The recruiter also gave her a heads-up that certain interviewees onsite would be “looking for specific things”, so be on the lookout for vague language, research topgrading, and prepare a more in-depth review of your resume before the onsite to cover all your bases.

The onsite itself was a presentation based on a case study given a week prior. There were four 30-minute interviews followed by a 30-minute presentation given to a stakeholders from the product, marketing, sales teams and a solutions architect. You can expect:

• The product team to ask about product mapping and execution
• The marketing team will ask about marketing frameworks, innovation, and collaboration
• The sales team will ask about cross-functional work and partnerships with sales
• The solutions architect will focus on developer relations and customer management

You’ll find some specific practice questions in the next section, so stay tuned.

Final Fit Assessment Interview(s)

Finally, you’ll meet again with the hiring manager and perhaps someone from a level or two up. Our interviewee was joining a brand-new team and her hiring manager had not officially joined at the time, so she also met with an outside consultant hired on to ensure that Twitter’s hiring process was fully optimized.

“There was lots of brainstorming. They didn’t have all the answers” noted our interviewee. “It was clear that they were invested in putting together the best team possible.”

We hope you're feeling confident now that you've gotten a taste of the full interview loop. But just in case you don't, we asked an insider if she had any special tips. Here's what she said:

"Each of my interviews at Twitter was way more casual than I anticipated, so I would encourage interviewees to brush up on their communication and soft skills and focus on being a great communicator vs memorizing answers to technical questions. They want to see how you think and process information. Each person I met with also pointed out that I asked great questions, so that seems to be a box for each of them to check as well. Prep some thoughtful questions for each person!"